Over a year ago, as an exercise, I started writing one short story a week. This was something Harlan Ellison (I think) suggested to one of his fans, his reasoning being "You can't write 52 bad short stories in a row." I'm not sure about that, but here's one of those stories.
One fine fall day at Pinewood University, mad Professor Mu hands out his midterm test to his class. One question is
Kappa the kitty cries more loudly the higher she climbs in her favorite tree. Her volume changes at a rate of f (h) = h + h2 decibels per meter, where h is Kappa’s height above ground measured in meters. Find the integral of f(h) from h=1 to h=5 and explain what it represents in the context of this problem.
Another question is
Adam the Ant stands at the origin. He begins walking 1 unit in the +x-direction and then turns 45◦ counterclockwise counterclockwise and walks 1/2 units in that direction. Adam Ant then turns another 45◦ counterclockwise and walks 1/3 units in that direction. The ant keeps doing this endlessly. How far is the ant’s final position from its initial position?
He hands out one test to each of his 23 students, included the worst of them, Zander and Zoe. Zander has a scratches and insect bites on his face and neck. Zoe has cat scratches on her arms and insect bites on her face and neck. What are those from?
*
The previous week, Zander and Zoe separately roamed through the stacks in one of the upper floors of the school library. Each wears a book-bag slung over their shoulder, and neither has yet earned the scratches they wore to the midterm. Zander listens to music through earbuds attached to his cell-phone. Lots of students are studying in small cubicals, but a few cubicals, full of books, have been abandoned. Presumably the student studying there went to the bathroom or to go get a coffee from the kiosk on the first floor. Zander and Zoe make a round and meet by the stairs.
“There’s one near the zoology section,” Zoe says. “Looks like a calculus book. New.”
“I saw a chemistry textbook by the oversized books,” Zander says. “I’ll take the zoology desk.”
“I’ll take the oversized,” Zoe says.
The next morning, they go to the textbook store and trade in the chemistry, calculus, and several other textbooks for cash.
They go straight to Yuri’s room in the international dorm. His door is open and his girlfriend Yancy is doing yoga. Zander knocks on the door frame.
“Que pasa?” Zoe asks.
“Buenos dias. Come in,” Yuri says.
Zander and Zoe enter, and shut the door behind them. “How’s molly?” Zander asks, using their codeword for MDMA.
Yancy smiles. “She just arrived from Barcelona,” Yuri says, as he pulls a baggie of pills from Yancy's purse.
Minutes later and now high, Zander and Zoe walk through the nearby suburban neighborhood along a street lines with elm trees and brick single family homes. Soon they hear a “meow” and look up. A cat is stuck in the tree.
“Poor thing,” Zoe says.
“I gotta help it get down,” Zander says. Zander climbs the tree, grabs the cat, who scratches him in the face and neck. Zander yells and drops the cat.
Zoe thinks Zander is yelling at her to catch the falling cat. “Here kitty,” she says, arms raised to the falling animal. She catches the cat, who scratches her arms. “Ahhhh! Dammit, cat!”
The cat runs off. Zander loses his footing and falls, out of the tree. THUD! He lands on the grass with a groan.
Unfazed, Zander and Zoe wander over to a wooded park a few blocks away. Students often use it to hook up for sex at night, but this is the daytime.
“Feeling frisky?” Zander asks Zoe.
“Let’s go behind that big tree over there,” Zoe says as she heads deeper into the woods.
Behind the big tree, an elm by the looks of it, Zoe and Zander settle into some very passionate kissing.
Zoe scratches her legs, takes a breath, and returns to kissing. Zander scratches his back, then gets back to business. Soon, Zoe and Zander scratch a lot more. They both break away from each other at the same time.
“What the fuck?” Zander says, seeing a ton of ants swarming all over both or them.
“Ahhh!” Zoe yells. They both stand up and try to shake, slap and stamp all the ants. “Dammit, ants!”
Back in the classroom taking the midterm, Zoe and Zander have no idea how to answer the test questions. They look at each other with panicked eyes. Zander shrugs and starts writing a but of bullshit. In response to the Kappa the Kitty question, he tells the story of the cat in the tree. Zoe shrugs back and, in response to the Adam Ant question, tells about the aborted sexcapade in the woods. She even scratches her legs, the memory being so vivid.
*
That night, after a marathon grading session in which he, of course, gave both Zoe and Zander an F, Professor Mu had a dream about his crazy mom and dad.
We need a little background on his poor old parents. Mu would visit them every week in the mental institution they were confined to. Usually Dad thought he was god or George Washington or Humphrey Bogart. Usually Mom thought she was god or Florence Nightingale or Lauren Bacall. The days he visited when they both thought they were god were bad days. But one day he visited when his dad thought he was Humphrey Bogart and his mom thought she was Lauren Bacall. That was a good day. That's the background.
Professor Mu wakes up from his dream because, for some reason he can't fathom, Zoe and Zander reminded him of his mom and dad. He gets up, erases their Fs, replaces them by Cs, then goes back to sleep. He dreams of his mom and his dad - he's Humphrey Bogart and she's Lauren Bacall.
No comments:
Post a Comment